No Loose Ends
by guineapiggie
Summary: "I'm Alayne." "Yes, I know," he gave back without thinking. [...]"And besides, you know what he always said. No loose ends. There are no goddamn loose ends on this shit." [modern AU, rated T for language, dark topics, mild description of violence]
1. Interrogation of Sansa Stark

**No Loose Ends**

 **DISCLAIMER:** I don't own anything, this was written for the purpose of entertainment only.

 _This text is a continuation of a series, preceeded by "Liar, Liar", "The Mockinbird's Song", "Players and Pieces", "Ghost of the Past", "Wrapped Around Your Finger", "Take Care of the Ones that You Lost" and "When in Rome"._

 _ ***A/N***_ So, if "Survivors" was an alternate ending, this is the real deal. I'm not entirely happy with the way some of the passages turned out, but whatevs. It's done. This is where it all ends, people, and I may not like how it turned out writing-wise in places, but the content is exactly how I imagine it to go down.

Hope you'll enjoy it!

* * *

 **Interrogation of Sansa Stark by Sgt. Patrick Mallory, 16th of June 2008**

 **.**

"He took advantage of you."

"You could say that."

"He married you and sent you to a strange country and then he didn't contact you for years."

"True, but we only got married so I could get rid of my American passport, and so Alayne wouldn't show up in American records. My ex would've found us."

"Did you hate Baelish?"

"He kept me safe when I had no one, when he didn't even know me. He got me away from that place, from my ex. He paid alimony, more than enough, never a day late. He didn't meddle with how I raise my kids. He was never violent towards me, and I never even heard him raise his voice around the girls."

"You say you didn't see him a lot, after he moved to Ireland."

"Once a month or so, sometimes he was gone for half a year."

"But you were still sleeping with him?"

"Occasionally."

"Did he force you to?"

"No."

"You didn't answer my question, Miss Stark. Did you hate him?"

"I told you, he did everything I could ask for. He gave me no reason to hate him."

 _Liar_.

"But you were happy about the seperation?"

"Doesn't mean I hated him. I just didn't love him, either."

 _Liar, liar, liar._

"Did he love you?"

"I don't know."

"Did he love the children?"

"He brought them gifts."

"That's not what I asked."

"I don't think he did."

 _Oh, he taught you so well._

"Is he the father of your youngest daughter?"

"I don't see how that's relevant."

"That a yes?"

"An _I don't know_. And I don't care."

 _He'd be proud of you._

"Can I speak to your children?"

"Like hell you will. Whatever dirt Petyr got on him was his deal, we never had anything to do with it."

"You didn't _know_ either?"

"In America, he ran twenty brothels. I learned not to ask."


	2. 2000

**2000**

There was a little girl sitting on the steps to the small brick house, bent over two dolls she had placed at her feet. Her red hair hid her face from his view; it was a slightly darker shade of red than he remembered Sansa's being, it looked more unruly, curlier.

"Hello, young lady."

She raised her head and let the doll slip from her fingers. With an irritated movement, she pushed a strand of hair out of her face. It was longer than he'd first thought, it tumbled down her shoulders and fell down to her elbows. She eyed him with a curious look on her face.

For a moment, he wondered if he could really take how much she looked like her mother - and so much like Cat had when she was young.

"You mean me?" she asked, in a clear, high children's voice. There was a faint trace of an Irish accent and for some reason that stung.

"I don't see anyone else," he answered and pushed his hands down his coat pockets so she wouldn't see them clenched into fists. The sight of it had to be scaring her, surely, but he didn't know how else to maintain his composure. He wasn't too sure if the smile on his lips was convincing - and he really wasn't used to that feeling.

"Are you a friend of my mum?"

This time, he could feel the smile dropping off his lips for just a second before he could fix it. "I, well, I'm not sure she would put it that way. Is she inside?"

"She's at work."

"And left you all alone?"

She pulled a face. "No, she told me to stay with Uncle Edmure, he lives just next door."

"Then where is he?"

"I snuck out, he never notices. Hoster always wants to play with my dolls, but he does it all wrong."

He nodded, fighting down a smile. "Understandable. D'you think we can wait for your mum together?"

She frowned a little. "Mum always says I mustn't talk to strangers."

"You are talking to me right now, though, love," he pointed out with a smile. "Don't worry. I won't hurt you, promise. I just really need to talk to your mother and I've come a long way, I've got nowhere else to go."

"Okay," she said slowly after a moment of hesitation.

"Thanks," he muttered and sat down on the top of the stairs next to her, as far away from her as he could.

"What's your name?"

"Petyr," he answered softly.

"Alayne."

"Yes, I know," he gave back without thinking, then asked a little more cautiously: "So, she work a lot, your mum?"

"Like every other nurse," she answered in a slightly irritated tone, like he'd just asked her a completely superficial question.

A thought crossed his mind, a stupid thought. Masochistic. _Don't ask. Don't. For fuck's sake, Petyr, don't-_

He couldn't help it. "What about your father, Alayne? Where's he?"

She shrugged and picked up one of her dolls. "Don't know. He lives in America, Mum says. I've seen him once, but I can't remember. I was a baby."

"Couldn't you write him a letter or something?"

"Doesn't look like he wants to know me," she answered with another shrug.

"That what your mum says?"

She nodded and repositioned the ragdolls with utmost care.

He bit his lip, steadying his slightly out of sync breathing with some effort. _Told you it was stupid._

"I don't think that's true, Alayne. He probably has his reasons."

"It's okay," she reassured him with a faint smile and looked up at him for a moment. "We're good, Mummy and me. We don't need anyone else."

He felt another rather pained smile twitch around his lips. "'course you don't."

"Are you related to Mum or something?"

"No. No, just... only on a piece of paper."

"Then how d'you know her? She doesn't have friends like you."

"Oh, I hope she doesn't," he muttered and shook his head. "No, your mum and I met in America. Before you were born."

"If you've known her for so long, why are you only visiting now?"

"I... I did some things to your mum that weren't very nice. I'm not sure we're still friends."

She nodded and started moving her dolls about again, then after a while she put them down and looked him straight in the eye. It felt disconcerting, being looked at with those bright, curious eyes that managed to look exactly like his and completely different at the same time.

"Do you have a family?"

He had no idea what to say. Of course, to her, it was a perfectly simple question, but it wasn't simple at all. Did he? Just because he'd written his name on some legal form with a cheap, almost empty pen; just because half of this little girl's genetic material was his? He'd spent a total of maybe 45 minutes with her, of the roughly 2,5 million minutes that she'd lived so far. The local dentist had probably spent much more time with her than he had. He didn't know her, and he had neither seen her mother nor talked to her in more than four years.

Biologically, legally, yes. He had a family.

But if family meant love, trust, understanding or whatever sentimental shit people associated with that term -

"Well, I..."

He was saved by the bell - though saved was probably a pretty ambiguous term in that situation.

 _"Petyr?"_

A young woman stood on the sidewalk in front of the house. Her thick red hair was pinned into a lose bun at the nape of her neck, there was a shopping bag in her left hand and a large handbag in the other. The look on her face was gradually changing from complete shock to cold fury.

Alayne jumped to her feet. "Mummy!"

"Hi, sweetie," she said, putting a smile on her face, bent down to her and pushed the red hair out of the little girl's face. "Have you done all your homework?"

"Not yet," she said sheepishly.

"Well, then you better get started," she said with a very faint trace of authority in her voice, and gently directed Alayne towards the house. "Off you go."

"Yes, Mum," she drawled and slumped up the stairs, waving stealthily at him as she passed.

Sansa watched her go, then spun around and took a step towards him. " _What are you doing here?"_

"Came to see you, but you weren't home," he gave back softly. "Ran straight into the young madam and got interrogated."

"For how long have you been talking to my daughter?" she said sharply, her blue eyes very cold.

"Easy, love," he said, raising his hands, "I didn't do anything, I hardly even _said_ anything."

"Do you really think you can turn up here like that? After, what, four years? Four and a half? Think you can just come here, after all this time - how _dare_ you talk to Alayne without me? What did you tell her?"

"Nothing. Sansa, Jesus, calm down, what d'you think I'm gonna do to her?"

She scoffed. "Yeah, what would you do to a naive girl with red hair that looks like your childhood love? I couldn't _possibly_ imagine."

"You - what, I... for Christ's sake, Sansa, you think - You think I - _God_." He shook his head and stared at her, lost for words. "She isn't even _six years old_ , bloody hell, what do you think of me? I'm not a fucking _paedophile_. My own - my _own_ child, Jesus Christ, this girl looks at me with my own fucking eyes and you think I could- "

"Like you ever cared," she hissed. "After you got us well out of the country with a nice lot of money to keep me quiet I never heard another word - don't get me wrong, I think that was probably the best thing that could've happened to Alayne-"

"I spent six months in bloody prison just to make sure you two got out of the country. Good to see that appreciated," he bit back, hating himself for letting his voice give away so much. _Get a grip. Jesus. How can you still be so stupid around this girl after all this time?_

"Prison? You?"

"Well, I had to keep the Lannisters out of your hair somehow, right?" he asked softly, calmer now.

"I know you sold them to the cops, but what the hell did you do in prison?"

"Protective custody, Sansa, they built their whole case around my statement."

For a moment she was silent, then she seemed to put herself together. "Still, you had four entire years to write, call, show me, in some way, that you give a damn about your biological daughter. You didn't, and after all this time you have no right to be in her life. I might have been screwed up enough myself to want you around, but I will not allow you to hurt my daughter. You stay the hell away from her, Littlefinger."

 _Littlefinger._ Hearing that name hadn't hurt in years, and yet -

"Sansa-"

"No. Piss off. You corrupt everyone around you, you make people care for you when they should want to scratch your eyes out, you do horrible things and you use people and then you make them feel like they deserve it. Like they can consider themselves lucky you even put up with them. You're a manipulative, emotionally crippled puppet player and you can't even help it. I would rather _die_ than let someone like you near my daughter."

" _Our_ daughter," he corrected softly.

"No. You've got no idea how to be a father. You never had a proper parent, Petyr, you never loved anyone, you just don't know how."

He tried for a smile. "I wouldn't know if you don't let me try, Sansa."

"You think I'd put Alayne's innocence - her happiness - on the line, just so we can see if you screw it up or not?"

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Right. Right. Could we at least sit down at a table like civilised people and talk this through? You owe me that much, I've had a bloody long flight and need I remind you that you are living off my money?"

"Fine. Can I get changed first? I've done a nine-hour shift." She threw him a cold look. "Pub down the street. I'll meet you there."

"Alright," he answered softly. "I'll wait."

* * *

"She is my daughter. My signature is on her birth certificate, on all those goddamn papers, and if the Lannisters ever find any of them, they will have my head for it. I knew that, and I did it anyway. I made a statement in court, sold them to the police, they sat right across of me-"

"You want me to pity you?" she cut him off, making her voice and her eyes as cold as she could.

"No, I want you to give me some kind of reason why I did this," he replied, his voice still unreasonably calm.

"Like what?"

"Like a chance to let me see my child. She's my daughter as well-"

"I don't care."

"Sansa, I have a right to-"

This conversation wasn't going anywhere. "After four years, why would you suddenly want to know her? All those damn years, Petyr, you could have called." She really, _really_ hoped her voice didn't give the hurt behind these words away – that hurt that she was so ashamed of, but that just wouldn't go.

"Right, and tell them where you are?"

"I don't believe that's your reason."

"Sorry, it's all I've got, sweetling."

" _Don't_ call me that," she hissed, almost grateful he'd got her angry again. "You _never_ cared. We both know you _never_ cared. And besides - I was a just a kid back then myself, but you were bored and lonely and you didn't give a damn-"

He had leaned back, swirling the drink in his glass slowly, and looked back at her with an utterly neutral expression."You were of age, sweetling, stop trying to make me look like a creep."

"No need for that, Petyr, you made yourself look like one. I was a child and you were an adult and you should never have touched me and you know it-"

"I distinctly remember taking in a defenceless girl to keep her from harm, and I distinctly remember said girl coming to me for comfort. It wasn't _my_ initiative to kiss you, Sansa, and it wasn't me that took off your clothes. That first time, and the second as well, that was all you. Do try to remember that next time you want to present yourself as the hapless victim."

She hated him. How could a person be this cold? Why wouldn't he even get _angry?_

"I needed you on my side and you made that the only way."

"You tried to use me and I played along and that is all that happened."

"You're a self-righteous heartless liar," she said softly, icy calm in her voice. "I'll never forgive you for what you did to me-"

"I didn't ask you to."

"... and I'll let you near my child when hell freezes over."

Now he was _smiling._ Goddamn bastard. "We both lied and we both used each other, sweetling. What makes me the monster? Why are you to be excused?"

"I was a stupid child who fell in love with the only person who didn't want me dead. You were a smart, grown man in full possession of your wits and entirely in control of the situation. That's the difference."

He looked at her, those gorgeous deep sharp green eyes that still saw right through her bearing into hers, so much darker and colder and sadder than Alayne's, until she faltered and looked away.

"You know that's not quite true, though. You know you did have control over me, Sansa," he chastised gently.

She said nothing, just continued to stare at her drink and wondered how after everything he'd done, he could still make her feel bad about lying to him.

It was pointless. She couldn't even fight him, not even after all these years, he was still playing her like a stupid puppet -

"Also, do you really think you know me well enough to tell if I've loved you or not?"

His voice had gone very quiet, with an unusually harsh tone to it.

That almost made her laugh in disbelief. "You really would say anything to get what you want, right?"

He threw her a very bitter smile and drained the rest of his scotch at once. "Yes, anything. Even the truth."

 _He's never looked at Cat like that_ , she heard Edmure say, very softly, years ago at the airport. She hadn't been supposed to hear.

She couldn't shake the tiny nagging doubt in her head, that little voice asking if maybe he wasn't lying, maybe it wasn't _all_ a lie, maybe he _did_ care –

But no. She'd had enough of this. It had already cost her too much of her life.

This one time, she wouldn't let him win.

"Get out."

"Think on it," he said, all his charm back in his voice as if it had never been gone. "I'll be right here."

" _Go_. And stay away."


	3. 2001

**2001**

 _What if we don't find her, what if they've got her, what if they've_ touched _her, what if they've hurt her, what if she's –_

She blinked away the tears and gripped the flashlight tighter. These thoughts weren't helping.

 _But what if –_

She shook her head angrily and let the cone of light wander up and down the deserted country road. " _Alayne!"_

Petyr had told her not to call for her, to make as little noise as she could. Said that maybe they were still around, maybe they would hear her; said they'd want her more than Alayne.

Sansa didn't care.

That bastard. It was a miracle he'd even gone to help look for her at all.

In fact, it was a goddamn miracle he'd even come down from Dublin in the first place. Not like that had been any use, Alayne had already disappeared before his shiny black car pulled into the driveway, but it surprised her he'd drive all this way just to tell them he'd heard rumours a handful of Americans were looking for him.

 _Bastard._ If he hadn't messed with the Lannisters, if they'd just left without a word, none of this would have happened…

" _Alayne!"_

When she'd told him Alayne should've come home from school half an hour ago, he hadn't said a word, just got some tape out of the kitchen cupboard to tape a flashlight to the gun he drove around in the glove compartment. Sansa had seen others do that when she was a child – for better aim in the dark. Petyr would need more than that, they both knew he was a lousy shot, even in broad daylight.

(Sansa was better, Sandor Clegane had taught her how, a thousand years ago. She clutched the gun in her own hand.)

She hated the fact he'd thought they might need guns.

She hated the fact she had to touch one again at all.

" _Alayne!"_

 _If we don't find her, I'll kill you,_ she'd promised him. He hadn't answered.

The road was empty. It was freezing, soft drizzle coating everything with a fine mist, and the only thing to hear was the wind in the high grass.

She couldn't _breathe_.

Her ringtone disrupted the eery quiet, making her jump so badly she almost dropped the gun.

Her fingers were cold and numb, and she took three attempts to hit the 'answer' field on the screen.

"Get back inside, Sansa. I found her."

Her heart stopped, or at least it felt like it. "Where? Is she okay, is-"

There was a slight shuffling at the other end of the line. She couldn't _breathe-_

"Talk to your mother," she heard Petyr's voice, muffled and far away, then –

"Mum?"

Her voice sounded hoarse and choked-up, but despite all that, Sansa heard herself laugh. She'd never felt this relieved in her entire life.

"Hi baby. Are you okay?"

"I hurt my foot," Alayne answered softly, then there was Petyr's voice at the phone again.

"She tripped. Might be broken, but elsewise she's okay. They didn't even see her. Hell, _I_ didn't see her _,_ would've never found her if she hadn't heard me. I'll take her back, give me ten minutes."

"Petyr, let me-"

He'd already hung up.

.

She stood on the porch with the gun still in her hand, shivering in the cold, until they finally came into view.

Alayne was wrapped into Petyr's coat, her curls a red mess against his shoulder.

Sansa almost fell over her feet as she stumbled towards them, holding out her arms.

"Come here, sweetie," she whispered, practically tearing her out of Petyr's arms.

Her pale little face was streaked with tears.

"Where have you been?"

"There were men standing on the road when I came back," Alayne whispered into her neck. "I went to hide in the hills, and then I fell down and then I couldn't walk anymore."

Sansa wrapped her arms around her daughter as tightly as she could. "I'll call you a doctor, baby, let's just get you where it's warm for now, okay?"

She hardly even heard Petyr entering the house after her while she carried Alayne up the stairs, who'd already fallen asleep in her arms.

.

He still sat in the kitchen hours later when she came down to see the doctor out, an untouched glass of beer in front of him. The door to the corridor was open and she couldn't help but be surprised at how he sat there, his eyes fixed at the bottom of the stairs in that complete stillness he had.

Like a guard dog.

"Why are you still here?"

He just shrugged. "They might be back."

"You'd be a fat lot of help then," she gave back, sitting down across him. "They were looking for _you._ "

"I know. I'm dealing with them."

"Did you ever shoot someone in your life, Petyr?" she asked with a scoff, nodding towards the gun that still lay on the table between them.

"Well, I did shoot _at_ your darling uncle Brandon. Never hit him, though." He took a sip from his glass. "I'm having people on the lookout, Sansa. That's the last we've seen of these Lannisters – if they even _were_ Lannister men."

"Who else would it be?"

Petyr smiled. "Just about everyone else I've pissed off across the pond."

"Do you think this is _funny?_ " she hissed. "Alayne could have _died._ For _nothing._ Worse, for _you_."

"You think I don't know that, sweetling?"

"I said don't call me that."

He sighed. " _Sansa,_ then. Look, I know. I didn't see this coming, and that's my fault, but I promise you they'll never lay a glove on that girl. And you might not believe that, but I _would_ kill them myself before I let that happen."

Sansa just scoffed. She'd gone through too much of a nightmare to believe his pretty phrases tonight.

For a while, he just looked at her, his eyes more green than grey, then he asked softly, in his best trust-worthy velvet-coated voice: "Is there nothing I can do to earn your trust, Sansa?"

She wanted to tell him she never trusted him, but thought better of it. It wouldn't make him leave any sooner, either, and it wouldn't really be true.

"How about saying you're sorry?" she whispered instead, but he just smiled his all-knowing, cold little smile and said, almost tenderly:

"I would, if you really want to hear that. It's just that I thought we weren't lying to each other anymore."

For a moment, she wanted to hit him for saying that, for being that arrogant jerk he could be, but then she realised that it spoke of the one thing she'd always loved about him:

He respected her, enough to - occasionally, at least - tell her the truth, even if it was a bitter pill to swallow.

He'd never treated her like a child.

So she returned his smile.

"Thank you. For finding her."

"You really think I don't care," he muttered and took another sip of his beer. "I always thought you knew me better than this."

"I never knew you at all, Petyr."

Once again, his smile changed into that strange, broken little thing that had so little to do with how Littlefinger smiled at the world. She always wondered if she was the only one who'd ever seen him smile like this.

"I said no more lies, Sansa," he muttered, with a tenderness in his voice that should sound all wrong but it didn't. It was so easy to believe him. He'd always been so good at that, at keeping things simple - at the surface, anyway. Believing him was easy and comfortable and suddenly she _wanted_ to believe him.

Not for long.

 _Just this once._

What could it hurt?

She could let things be easy, just for one night. (She deserved that much, didn't she?)

His lips still tasted of the Guiness and she thought that was the taste that cynical smile should have always had, all Irish bitterness with just a hint of sweetness to make it bearable.

(Maybe she'd missed kissing him. If she had, she wasn't about to admit it.)

.

.

.

"Sansa?"

She sighed. Of course, of _course_ Edmure had waited to hear the car leave, and _of course_ as soon as the car hadn't left before the early morning he came over to dish out a few unnecessary warnings.

"Don't say it, Ed," she muttered, eyes still fixed on Alayne's homework that she was spell-checking.

"I didn't say anything."

"You don't have to," Sansa replied drily, glancing up at him. "I can feel your disapproval through solid walls."

"I didn't say a word," Edmure repeated.

Sansa put the exercise book down and sighed. "I know... you never do." She smiled up at him. "Thank you for that."

Edmure shuffled his feet uncomfortably and pushed his hands down his pockets. "Just looking out for you."

"Ed, for God's sake," she sighed and got to her feet to put up the kettle. "We had sex, he left, he won't be back for months. It's not like he's moving in."

"Oh God, _don't_ -" Edmure stammered, pulling a face, and hurried to the door. "I don't need to hear you say it. Please don't. _Gross_!"


	4. 2008

**2008**

 _-Whatever you ask that is in my power, I will do._

 _-What if I want you to die, here and now?_

 _-Then I will die._

\- Game of Thrones, season 6, episode 5

.

.

* * *

The girl was sleeping, her red hair spread over the pillow into every direction, a bloody red halo against the white linen.

He tried to shake off all the memories

(They weren't what he wanted to take with him, where he was going.)

A floorboard creaked underneath his feet and she shifted. Petyr closed his eyes and suppressed a curse. _God damn it._

"Dad? What time is it?" she murmured sleepily, blinking up at him into the light that flooded into the room from the hall.

 _Dad._ It hit him that he couldn't even say when she had started calling him that, or when she'd even figured it out in the first place.

"Don't know. Middle of the night," he muttered and sat down at the edge of the mattress. "I gotta go, got a call from the city."

He ran a hand through her ruffled red hair. "Be good. Look after your sister. Listen to your mother."

"I _know_."

"Just reminding you. I have to get on your nerves, you see, that's my job." He let her kiss his cheek, then pulled the covers up around her and threw her a smile that didn't feel like it looked right. "Good night, darling."

"See you," she muttered, clearly already half-asleep, and Petyr was glad he'd already turned his back on her. He could maybe fake the voice, but he didn't have the strength to get the smile right this time. That thing that was pulling at his lips now was more bitterness than this child should ever have to see – he'd promised himself he'd never let her see it.

"Yeah. See you."

* * *

His wallet sat on the nightstand, right in her field of view when she woke up.

She sighed and reached for her phone.

"Petyr, you left your _wallet_ , what's the matter with you?" she muttered as soon as he picked up the phone.

"Uh, ma'am-" came a hesitant voice from the other end. "This, this is Sergeant Mallory."

"Um, excuse me... who is this?"

"Gardaí, ma'am-" He seemed to pick up on her slight American accent and added: "Uh, Dublin Police."

 _Police_. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. _Jesus. Stay calm. Think. Think._

"Sorry, Sergeant, do - do I have the wrong number?"

"No, ma'am, you don't. Could I have your name?"

 _Shit. Shit_. She had no choice. Fake names would only make it worse. "Sansa Stark."

"Miss Stark, we were called to a crime scene this morning, a gun fight, and we found no identification on the victim except for this phone, if you could tell me who you were trying to reach, maybe-"

 _Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit-_

He'd left his wallet. He never forgot his wallet. If he didn't want to be identified -

But still. What choice did she have?

"Petyr. Petyr Baelish."

"White, late forties, dark hair, suit and tie?"

"Yes," she murmured. "Is he... is he alive?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am," the young man murmured. She had to hand it to him, he did sound sorry. "He was dead when we found him."

"Oh, Jesus Christ." she muttered. Her head was spinning.

"Are you family?"

"In a way. It's complicated."

"I'm sorry we have to ask this of you, but we need someone to identify the body."

Her head was spinning. There seemed to be a severe lack of oxygen in her brain.

"Of course. I... I have his ID, he left his wallet."

 _Petyr would freak out. If he left his wallet, he didn't want them to find it, damn it, shut your stupid mouth-_

"I'll give you an address-"

"Okay," she breathed.

"Miss Stark. I'm very sorry for your loss."

"Yeah." Her voice sounded faint.

There were soft footsteps approaching. "Mummy?"

"I'll be there as soon as I can. Thank you, Sergeant."

Lyanna looked at her with big grey eyes. "Mummy, what's wrong?"

She ran her hand over her face and tried to force a smile on her lips. "Nothing, darling. Mum's just having a rough morning. Uh, look, Lyanna, go get your doll, sweetie, you're spending the afternoon at Aunt Roslin's. I've got to go to Dublin with your uncle Edmure."

"Will you bring me something?"

Her mind was blank. "Maybe, yeah. Go on. Go get your doll."

Ten minutes later, she stood on the threshold of the house next door, still gasping for air.

"Oh. Hi, Lyanna." Edmure frowned up at Sansa. "What's going on?"

"Ed." She shooed her daughter inside. "Go find Auntie Roslin, love."

"Sansa, what's - what's going on?"

"We have to go to Dublin. Right now. I just had the police on the phone."

"Police, but what-"

"Petyr is dead."

.

"Do you think we'll have to run?" she asked after they'd spent most of the drive in complete silence.

"We don't know what he did in Dublin, Sansa. God knows, probably drugs or some other vastly illegal thing. It's been so long. Twelve years. It's much more likely he upset some big time criminal or one of 'em heroin addicts and got shot for his pains."

"What if it wasn't? What if they've found him?"

Edmure sighed and fiddled with the navigation system for a moment. "You know, I'm not gonna lie, I always hoped he'd finally get what he deserved-"

"Ed-"

"But the one thing he did right in his life was protecting you. Petyr was a bastard, but he also was the smartest man I've ever known, and thorough. Even if they've found him that doesn't have to mean they've found you, too."

"Nobody would've found me if he'd just been an unidentified dead businessman in the street, but I _called_ , the police knows, I identified him, they've got my name, _God damn it_ , what if they find out about the children?"

"Sansa-"

"Following the police is easy, Edmure, if it was them they'll find us, he signed Alayne's birth certificate, it's not exactly a leap to figure out who Lyanna's father is, and who knows if they even care, it doesn't matter - none of it matters, if it's about revenge or about erasing traces, they'll kill us all-"

"Calm down, Sansa, it's too late. We need to cooperate with the Police or they'll take a closer look at us, and right now that's the bigger problem. We walk in there, identify the body and then we lay low. We budge now, we'll only make it worse."

There wasn't anything she could say, Edmure was right after all, as much as it pained her to admit this. She leaned her head against the window pane and stared at the approaching city. "He knew."

"Knew what?"

"That they were coming for him. He went to see Alayne, in the middle of the night before he left. That, and he left his wallet behind. You know he doesn't forget things like that."

"All the better. He was prepared. And I don't like it either, but right now we have to trust he did a decent job."

She scoffed. "You're telling me to trust a dead man with the lives of my daughters?"

"Yeah. He's their dead _father_ , and besides, you know what he always said. No loose ends. There are no goddamn loose ends on this shit."

Sansa sighed and returned to staring out of the window again. For the first time since she'd got the call, she realised she would have to tell the girls.

Alayne would be devastated… She'd probably been his favourite, and it wasn't like that really surprised Sansa – Lyanna might have inherited his dark curls, but Alayne was her father's daughter, through and through. Though she had Catelyn's red hair, she seemed to look more like him with every day that passed – and the resemblance didn't stop there. She was the cleverest kid in class and excelled at the theatre club. She seemed to have the same disposition for pretence, the same talent for lies, the same mischievous spark in her green eyes. It scared Sansa half to death, but she didn't want to forbid her the theatre group, and it wasn't like that would change anything. All she could do was hope that just because Alayne was so much like her father didn't have to mean she would end up the same.

The girl worshipped him, and Sansa had long since given up trying to stop her from it.

He'd taught her to play chess, so evidently she beat Sansa more often than not, Edmure lost to her in a matter of minutes. Petyr left her riddles and math puzzles and when he came back she would be waiting at the front door to show him the results, and it never seemed to bother her when he let her wait for two months or more.

On the night of her eleventh birthday, he had put up his old records and tried to teach her how to dance.

 _This will break her poor heart._

That thought was the first that brought tears to her eyes.

.

"Miss, I'll have to warn you, shooting victim ain't a pretty sight."

 _Red splashed on marble steps and dust, splattered all over cheap white motel tiles; blood on their hands, on Joff's face, on Gregor's bulgy muscles. Blood on her hands, too, in her hair - and the stench of the gunpowder -_

She swallowed, needed two attempts to speak. "I know."

"Sansa, you don't have to do that, I can -"

"No offence, Ed," she said quietly, "but you can't."

The medical examiner led her to one of the metal slabs. "Are you okay?"

"I'd just like to get it over with."

"Sure." She felt sick just looking at the white sheet covering the body. Edmure put an arm around her shoulder, but she shrugged it off.

"Seven bullets. The shooter stood close, maybe an arm's length or so. Two to the head, so identification might be difficult…"

She was sure she would faint. "Show me. Please."

The young man gently pulled back the white cloth to reveal the body up until the hip. Sansa's stomach gave a small, painful lurch, but she stood, thankfully.

"Oh, _good God_ ," she heard Edmure whimper. He turned away, a hand clenched over his mouth.

Sansa stayed put.

She was a nurse, not unaccustomed to dead bodies. The thing about them was, somehow once people were dead, they all started to look the same. Even if there was no decay yet, just paler skin and no more pulse - they all looked similar.

It was the same with this one. She had to go through the physical characteristics one by one because her brain wasn't putting the image together by itself, said them out loud for the examiner.

"The height fits. The hair colour, too." They'd washed the blood off, but his hair was too short to mask the way the bullets had deformed the skull.

 _(She knew what it would look like, blood seeping through short dark greying hair, spreading on the floor in thin lines meeting and melting together in the heavy silence that followed the bang-)_

One bullet had entered through the forehead, just off the centre, and from what she could see blown open the back of the head. That shot alone would have killed him instantly.

A second had hit lower, on the right side of his face just below the cheekbone. The flesh around the entrance wound looked charred and burned, and for half a heartbeat she saw another man's lifeless face, the right cheek burned even worse but the scars were old -

This side of the face was a mess, but the other looked strange too - she'd never noticed how many lines there were on it, not until now when he looked even paler than he had in life.

The last thing she checked for was the scar, the line of knotted, hardened skin that spanned from collarbone to hip, disfiguring the left side of his torso - even after all these years, it was prominent; an ugly dark reminder of what happened to people who didn't belong. She'd always thought there was a sick kind of poetry about the way it stretched right across his heart.

Most of it was gone now, swallowed up in red and white craters, but she could still make out a tiny bit of it.

"The scar," she said, feeling the need to explain for some unknown reason, "he got hit by a shotgun, as a teenager. Tree next to him took most of it, or else he wouldn't have survived it."

She took a deep breath and stepped away from the slab as far as the room allowed. "That's him. Definitely." Sansa thought she should feel something, _anything_ , but she didn't.

.

.

"Sansa, you're not going to sit still, are you?" Edmure asked with a raised brow, eying her chaotic piles of books and letters that were covering her entire bedroom.

"No. I know what to do," she muttered without stopping in her tracks. "He left a number, somewhere. Someone owes him a favour-"

"Well, _who the fuck doesn't_ -"

"The Lannisters killed his sister and his nephew and niece. He'd been after them for years, and Petyr served them all to him on a silver tray, he got all the verdicts he wanted."

"And how the hell is he supposed to set this thing right?"

"He's a detective. Organised crime, well, back then he was." Sansa pulled out a black notebook and leafed feverishly through the pages. "He is going to whistle off the Gardaí, and then Petyr and his case will be buried, and _deep_."

She smiled and fished her phone out of her pocket. "Ed, get out. The less you guys know about it, the better."

"Sansa-"

" _Out_."

* * *

"Sergeant Mallory, Gardaí Dub-"

"You the one working the murder of Petyr Baelish?"

"Yes. Who is this?"

"Detective Oberyn Martell. New York Police Department."

"Right. New York... How can I help you?"

"I can help _you_ , Sergeant. I have your murderer."

"I'm... I'm sorry, what?"

"We shot the poor bastard, this morning, when he attacked one of my colleagues."

"Did he confess, or how-"

"God, no, and even if he had, we couldn't have used it. Corbray was high as fuck. But he's had it in for Baelish, for decades, a lot of people had around here. His apartment was covered with newspaper cuttings, pictures, maps, he must've looked for Baelish for years."

"You telling me someone followed Baelish across the pond and was pissed enough at him to put seven bullets through him after years and years? Jesus." Mallory sighed. "D'you have anything, on Baelish? All we have is his wife, they were separated and she doesn't say a word. When I asked to speak to the kids she nearly killed me. Who the hell was this guy?"

"A slippery ass is what. Knee-deep in mafia shit ever since he was seventeen, and we never got as much on him as a petty crime. He worked for the reigning mafia family down in King's Landing, that's um, our nicest part of town."

"Worked as what?"

"Financial counsellor. Pulled the money right out of everyone's pocket, sucked the whole damn city dry for them, and paid their fucking taxes, never a week late. He was a godsend to them, really, they had all that money and never knew what to do with it. He would've made it far. Except twelve years ago, the whole family got blasted into oblivion on the son's wedding."

"Ever solved that one?"

"Yeah. Little drug lord's son, wanted to impress his daddy. Bolton was his name, I think. Baelish cut a deal. Sold us all his books, every pay check they ever wrote, every drug shipment, every hitman they paid. We closed near a hundred cases, threw the whole bunch in jail. One of their hitmen got the chair."

"What did Baelish get for the deal?"

"Nothing. He was scared someone would come after him, bet he had his fingers in the bombing somehow, and once everyone was locked up he had time enough to erase his traces. Pulled a fucking disappearance act, too - there's literally nothing left anywhere to prove he even lived here, I don't know who he bribed but it's all gone. I feel real stupid - the bastard went home, and we never thought to look there. To be honest, I sort of forgot he was Irish. But whatever, couldn't have proved him a thing anyway. And it's not like it's my case anymore."

"So he was killed for his mafia dealings? Revenge?"

"Revenge, yes, but not for that. Baelish got engaged to an old flame of his, mentally completely instable, poor woman, like, fifteen years ago? And when she finally committed suicide a couple of months later, he cashed in. She was loaded. Corbray had tried to win her for years, and apparently he felt he got cheated of all the money."

"God, and I thought _this_ town was a shithole."

"Ain't no city like mine, Sergeant. I'm faxing you all our evidence in the morning."

"Thank you, Detective. For telling us."

"One of us wasting his life on these rotten people seems enough. Goodbye, Mallory."

.

Martell hung up and ran his hand over his eyes. Then he picked up the receiver of his other phone.

"I'm going to jail for the rest of my days if word gets out I pinned a major crime on an innocent druggie, girl."

"Thank you, Detective. You didn't have to keep your word."

"Yes, I did, or Baelish would've never struck a deal with me in the first place. You look after yourself, sweetheart. I always liked you. But I'm going to throw this phone away, and we'll both forget we ever talked."

"Don't worry, Detective. I don't want anything to do with the whole thing. I just hope my trouble died with him. Thank you. I think you just saved two innocent kids."

"Well, at least I came in time for these two, I guess."


	5. After

**After**

The funeral was a quiet affair, and all the way through she couldn't help but think he would have hated every second of it.

The girls were the only ones to cry, and Lyanna had only started when she'd seen her big sister in tears.

His gravestone was grey and nondescript, and all she had put on it was his name and the dates.

Alayne calculated his age when they first went to see it, and only then it hit Sansa that she'd never known how old her father was.

The children had never really known anything about him, and Sansa was not about to tell them anything now. It had quite stopped to matter.

"Someone speaks ill of your Dad, you nod and leave them be 'cause they're probably right," she had told the girls right after the funeral in the firmest voice she could muster. "Your father wasn't a good person. He was a liar and a criminal and he only ever looked out for what was his and what he wanted. But he loved you, and he would've done anything for you, and God knows what happened to him but he's always protected us. Nobody else has to know that, but I want you to remember it, okay?"

.

His will gave all his fortune to "his wife and children", and she hated him just a little for reffering to her like that when he never had in life, like "wife" was some sort of mockery, some last little slight.

The sum that she discovered on his bank accounts had so many zeros she had trouble remembering what a figure that high would even be called.

.

Sansa's eyes never left the rearview mirror when she was driving, she never turned a corner without throwing a look over her shoulder, but there was never anyone there.

Maybe Sansa's prayers had finally been heard. Maybe they just got lucky. Maybe whoever had really shot Petyr had satisfied his bloodlust.

She still slept with his old gun underneath her pillow.

.

She never wore black for a day. She had never played the wife, and she wouldn't play the widow either.

(And if she started wearing his ring when she went out over the next few years, she did it because she had no time for the prats at the pub who wanted to buy her drinks. Her kids never saw it on her finger, she made damn sure of that, and if she ever cried for Petyr Baelish, she did it at night, in the car, far from home.)

Lyanna could hardly even remember him, but Alayne missed her father.

(And Sansa found the bad memories faded faster than the good ones.

Maybe, someday, she could just miss him, too.)

.

.

.

* * *

 ** _Please take a moment to review._**


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